A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

The beginnings 49
ince, and was thus the only genuinely Iranian religion among those mentioned
above.Zoroastrianism’s strong position in 622 may have been
partly due to the support it received as the official cult of the Sasanian
dynasty of Iran, which had, as we have seen, incorporated Khurasan
into its empire.Significantly, beyond the Amu Darya and thus outside
the direct control of Sasanian governors, Zoroastrianism had to cede
primacy to other faiths, especially Manichaeism in Transoxania and
Buddhism in Sinkiang.Manichaeism was another dualistic religion
founded by Mani (216–77) in Iraq, then a Persian possession, but subsequently
all but extirpated in territories under Persian or Byzantine rule.
Mani spoke a Semitic tongue related to Syriac, a later form of Aramaic,
the language spoken by Christ.Transoxania and Sinkiang became the
principal home of this religion during the next few centuries, and the
stamp that it left there went beyond the bounds of the spiritual: its Syriac
alphabet was adapted by the Sogdians and was later passed on to the
Turks – among whom it eventually ceded the place to the victorious
Arabic script – and to the Mongols, who used it until 1940.Buddhism
was the third, and with Zoroastrianism the earliest, of the three major
creeds of Central Asia prior to the arrival of Islam.Its presence in
Khurasan and Transoxania was only marginal, but in Afghanistan and
Sinkiang it became the dominant religion: Balkh, Khotan, and Qocho
were the foremost among Buddhist centers.The devoutness of the king
of Qocho is vividly described by the Chinese pilgrim Hsüan Tsang
(600–64) who passed through it in 629.Sanskrit and its derivatives and
alphabets such as Brahmi, as well as another script named Kharoshti
and derived, like the Sogdian one, from Syriac, came with this religion
from northwestern India, but despite initial vigor these writing systems
gradually gave way to the Manichaean Sogdians’ Syriac script.
Christianity too arrived early in Central Asia: Merv was the seat of a
bishopric by the fourth century, and the religion spread in its Nestorian
form throughout the area under discussion.Alongside its own sharp
individuality, this denomination had certain features in common with
Manichaeism: Syriac liturgical language and script in particular.
Christianity never managed to gain a leading position in Inner Asia, but
it later played an at times significant role among the elite of the otherwise
shamanistic Turks and Mongols.
This, then, was the general situation in 622.Meanwhile the birth of
Islam in distant Arabia signified more than just another religion that
would soon join those existing in Inner Asia.It meant a new and uncompromising
way of life, both spiritual and temporal, wherever Muslim